98 RED-HEADED WOODPECKER. 
miums to the amount of twopence per head for their destruction.*® 
But let us not condemn the species unheard: they exist — they must 
therefore be necessary.t If their merits and usefulness be found, on 
examination, to preponderate against their vices, let us avail ourselves 
of the former, while we guard as well as we can against the latter. 
Though this bird occasionally regales himself on fruit, yet his 
natural and most useful food is insects, particularly those numer¢.s and 
destructive species that penetrate the bark and body of the ee to 
deposit their eggs and larve, the latter of which are well known to 
make immense havock. That insects are his natural food is evident 
from the construction of his wedge-formed bill, the length, elasticity, 
and figure of his tongue, and the strength and position of his claws, 
as wall as from his usual habits. In fact, insects form at least two 
thirds of his subsistence ; and his stomach is scarcely ever found with- 
out them. He searches for them with a dexterity and intelligence, I 
may safely say, more than human; he perceives, by the exterior ap- 
pearance of the bark, where they lurk below; when he is dubious, he 
rattles vehemently on the outside with his bill, and his acute ear dis- 
tinguishes the terrified vermin shrinking within to their inmost retreats, 
where his pointed and barbed tongue soon reaches them. The masses 
of bugs, caterpillars, and other larve, which I have taken from the 
stomachs of these birds, have often surprised me. These larve, it 
should be remembered, feed not only on the buds, leaves, and blossoms, 
but on the very vegetable life of the tree,—the alburnum, or newly- 
forming bark and wood; the consequence is, that the whole branches 
and whole trees decay under the silent ravages of these destructive 
vermin; witness the late destruction of many hundred acres of pine- 
* KauM. 
+ The abundance of this species must be very great, and from the depredations 
they commit, must be more felt. Mr. Audubon says that a hundred have been shot, 
in one day, from a single cherry-tree. In addition to their other bad habits, they 
carry off apples by thrusting in their bill as a spike, and thus supporting them. 
They also frequent pigeon-houses, and suck the eggs, —a habit not very common 
among this tribe ; and, for the same purpose, enter the boxes prepared for the Mar- 
tins and Blue-Birds. Another method of adding to their destruction, in Kentucky 
and the Souther States, is in the following manner related by Audubon :— 
“ As soon as the Red-heads have begun to visit a cherry or apple-tree, a pole is 
placed along the trunk of the tree, passing up amongst the central branches, and 
extending six or seven feet above the highest twigs. ‘The Woodpeckers alight by 
preference on the pole, and whilst their body is close to it, a man, standing at the 
foot of the pole, gives it a twist below with the head of an axe, on the opposife side 
to that on which the Woodpecker is, when, in consequence of the sudden vibration 
produced in the upper part, the bird is thrown off dead.” 
According to the same gentleman, many of the Red-heads (a name by which 
they are universally known) remain in the southern districts of the United States 
during the whole winter. The aeons number, however, pass to countries farther 
south. Their migration takes place during night, is commenced in the middle of 
September, and continues for a month or six weeks. They then fly high above the 
trees, far apart, like a disbanded army, propelling themselves by reiterated flaps 
of their wings at the end of each successive curve which they describe in their flight. 
The note which they emit at this time is different from the usual one, sharp, and 
easily heard fron the ground, although the birds may be out of sight. At the dawn 
of day, the whole alight on the tops of the dead trees about the plantations, and re- 
main in search of food until the approach of sunset, when they again, one afler 
another, mount the air, and continue their jourmyy. — Ep 
